First Night in Our House

 Our house in Panavezys is near completion. There are still things to be completed. Kitchen needs to be finished.  Bathroom and toilets still to be installed. Few minor repairs here and there. A number of boxes of our clothes, furniture, kitchen stuff, kids toys and other decorative items have been moved into the house already. I did managed to sleep in the house for a night. I watched movie and had a good sleep. Difficulty came when I had to use the toilet as the toilets are not ready yet. I hope that next year we could spend time in our house finally after a delay of three years, which has lead to a lot of frustration for me personally. 

Ds birthday

 1979 was a very important year, beautiful Persis khambatta made it to Start Terk. Mother Tress-a got the nobel peace prize and Charn Singh laid the foundation of telecommunication in India. This particular event also casted the destiny of my beloved friend Divya, who’s birth for me was indeed the most important event of that year. While Divya was already kicking his feet my parents were busy laying my foundations.

Lets skip to 10 years forward, while Sachin Tendulkar was making his international cricket debut and VP singh was laying foundation to become next PM, You were spending your time in an all boys school, well let me correct it not completely all boys there were few girls in the senior boys section. But being their little did you knew that you were going to be deprived of pleasure of being next to a girl for some time to come. By this time you had also acquired a nickname, which I know you don’t like so will keep it a secret for now but perhaps to be revealed on some other occasions. 

Fast forward to next 10 year, you made many friends at school and few girlfriends at tutions. Bajaj Chetak was your favourite ride and Jai Veeru’s jodi was either seen on Your Chetaks or Ahuja’s hero Puch. I often wonder was the chemistry tution you attended were really for studies or to enjoy the company of girls, miss rathi in particular, which you missed at school. We shall never know the secret.

By now  your youth was running high with testosterone and with the  availability of personal computers in hostels of Nagpur you were making good use of your dads money and liberating your freedom watching some very interesting movies. You can not be blamed for it, what else shall one do in a city known mostly for oranges.  Let me not be little the time though you spent in Nagpur. These were also some of the most fantastic years of your life, which shaped you as an independent person, your thinking, and you made some good friendships. 

Form here on we take it a bit slowly, you finished your engineering with good grades but then your urge to learn more, I wonder some time was it really urge to learn more or was it just homesickness that, brought you back to your home town of Roorkee. You joined the management program at IIT Roorkee. This will prove to be an important turning point in your life. As little did you knew that you will meet your soul mate and our beloved bhabhi Anu also in the Roorkee campus. For the next few years, finally, the testosterone running in your body was going to be put to good use instead of getting wasted. But I am a bit envious of this time as well because these were the times when your friends took a bit of a back seat, even Ahuja on the scooter was replaced. You only started to remember your friends once your to be wife was sent to work in London for some time. Long distance is never easy for anyone and for a roorkee boy whom it took over 20 years to make his first girlfriend you all can imagine the shock of it all that you decided to get married as you were a bit nervous about Anu running away with someone else in london. Typical small town logic but I am glad that you did made that decision and look at it now you are blessed with two beautiful daughters and your lovely wife sitting next to you. On this note lets raise a toast for your 40th birthday and many more to come. 

Beggar outside the Church

 Beggar outside the Church

As I walked past the Church on the Voketchu street in the Old Town of Vilnius, I couldn’t help myself noticing a beggar, who was crumbled into a lump sitting outside the church gates. He intrigued me as I stood their looking at him. Was it the cold weather or was it his old age that made him sit like that. He was crumbled into a lump with his knees touching his face and back rested against the railings of the church gates. His face was hardly visible. Wrinkled eyes poking between the muffler and the cap he was wearing looked intense. A handkerchief lay in-front of him with few coins scattered onto it. It was getting dark mist was setting in. I wondered if he is even alive. I placed a coin on the handkerchief his eyes blinked and he gave me a sign of gratitude for the small help. I walked back home. Lager that night as I lay in my bed, a thought kept on making loops in my mind, Why was he there suffering in old age ?  I couldn’t sleep well that night. 

Grandma

Grand Parents 

Often I think about my grandma, whom we called deda with love. I have a lot of memories of her from my Childhood. Whereas for my grandfather, nana, I have only a few. I  don’t have any memories of my dada or dadi as both of them were long gone before I arrived on this planet. 

I remember my nana and nani being old with one contradiction though, nani’s hairs, which remained black up until her death. Nana was short but must have been a handsome man in his youth. I remember my nana gave me three presents, a English hard hat, not of much use for me, a zippo lighter and a winter jacket with fur. Winter jacket was my favourite. I never new why he gave me the hard hat or the lighter. Clearly there was no use of it for me. Last memory of him I have of him lying on the makeshifts bed of bamboo sticks with cotton stuffed up his nostrils. It was in preparation for his funeral pyre, I know now. 

Memories of my nani are many. She was a strong woman she lived by herself for a long time in the village. I often visited her with my mother, one of her 10 siblings, who would go to check if she was fine and needed any help. I remember my nani feed me me butter cream from milk and fried fish. With her age it became harder for to be by herself. At this time she moved in with her eldest son. I visited here there too some times. I remember her thick glasses. Her white sari, she always wore white cotton saris, often resembling mother tress-a. He sink was fair and wrinkled. He often chewed beetle leaves and the juice kept her lips red and there was a smell of tobacco. For Bengali women it was common in those days to chew beetle leaves. I don’t see that now a days. 

There was one funny thing about her, her Hindi was very poor. Although she was originally from Bangladesh, she lived in India since she was 18 years of age but didn’t managed to learn herself any hindi. I communicated with her in my broken Bengali. During her very old age I often took her for short evening walks holding her hand. 

Last I remember she got very very sick unable to move and even simplest of things became hard. My mother often went to help her during this time. I regret not visiting her a lot during last few months. She passes away thereafter. But good thing of that is I still have in my head the image of the strong women and not one of a helpless old lady. 

Man Eater of Rajaji National Park

Man Eater of Rajaji National Park

I was watching, beautiful orange reflection of, the setting Sun on the Ganga river through the window of my room. I was supposed to be studying but the view was so striking that it caught my attention. I was starting to drift away in my thoughts, enjoying the view, when I was shaken up by someone touching my shoulder. As I turned around my sister was standing there, she said “dad is calling you, can’t you hear ?”. I immediately sprung into action and went straight to the drawing room, where my dad was sitting with his evening cup of tea. “Keshu”, he said, “your uncle is coming tomorrow morning to visit us and the milk is about to finish. Your mother is thinking to make some kheer, indian rice pudding, for breakfast tomorrow. I am waiting for an urgent phone call, Could you go get some milk from Heeralal”. 

Heeralal was our milkman. Every morning, for last many year, he punctually delivering milk from the Khasi village, close to Rajaji National Park, to our house. I picked up the keys of scooter and the jerrycan and walked out of the garage, while I was about to leave my mother cautioned me a bit, “don’t take the route across the hill side, I heard some villagers talking about a leopard roaming there attacking people”. 

It was twilight and as I rode my scooter I could feel the cool air touching my face. After the heavy monsoon season of July and August cooler period of September has just started, which made mornings and evenings a bit cooler and pleasant. I took the route road along the hills surrounding Rajaji National Park. A shorter faster route crossing across the hills existed too but my mother had asked me to avoid it. Within 20 minutes I was at Heeralal’s house in the village. I called for his name and out came Heeralal, “what are you doing here at this time?”, he asked. I told him about my uncle coming in the morning and that we were out of milk. He asked me to wait, while he took my jerrycan to get it filled. Heeralal was back in no time. It was getting dark now. I asked Heeralal, “I heard there is a leopard roaming around, have you seen any recently ? “. Leopard’s are so common here, they usually attack humans”, said Heeralal. 

I took the jerrycan filled with milk and hung it on to the handle of my scooter and kicked started it. It immediately came to life in just one kick, my amazing 1984 Priya, I switched on the headlamp and headed towards my home. After driving few minutes I reached to the junction where I had to choose again if I should take the road along the hills or the shorter route crossing the hills through the Rajaji National Park. I remembered Heeralal’s word, “ Leopard usually dont attack humans”. When Heeralal said that I didn’t paid attention to the word “usually”. I decided to cross the hill through the park after-all it was a shorter and quicker route. 

It was completely dark now but I had taken this route several time before in the day times I knew it with my eyes closed. As I crossed through the park I reached to the top of the hill I as I started to roll down something flashed in the bushes ahead. I thought it must be a deer. Rajaji park is full of deers. I stopped and turned my scooters headlamps towards the bushes. In the Scooters light I could see a set of eyes glowing through the bushes. I moved a little forward to see, which animal is it. My heart started to beat a bit faster. A black leopard stuck his head out of the bushes. Now my heart was pounding I could hear it beating. Is this the leopard my mother has warned me against, I asked myself. In a moment I turned the scooter around and pressed hard on the accelerator. I could see, in the rear view mirror, the leopard starting to chase me. The Scooter was rolling fast down the hill. I looked into the rear view mirror the Leopard was right at at my tail and was about to jump. I press harder onto the accelerator in bid to escape from it. As I looked again I could see him taking a jump at me. I immediately pressed hard on to the breaks the scooter skidded and stooped. I had caught leopard by surprise he jumped over me with his paws scratching my helmet. Now we were facing each other leopard lying in front of me. Adrenaline in my body got into my head and I decided to hit him with the 120 horsepower of my scooter. I pressed hard onto the accelerator again and maximised my speed and rushed towards the leopard and hit it hard with my scooter. We both fell, the milk jerrycan flunked out of the handle bar and hit the leopard on his head. This was too much of a surprise for leopard it got up limping a bit and disappeared into the bushes. 

I gather myself together and picked up the empty jerrycan, lifted the scooter up and also decided to head back to the junction to take the other route to home. I was happy to be alive and had a thought in my head. Although there would be no kheer tomorrow, I have my own story, of the Man Eater of Rajaji National Park, to tell everyone. 

Everest

Everest

My connection at Amsterdam airport was a bit delayed, usually such things upset me, but this time I was happy. It gave me a bit more time to spend with my childhood friend Vishal. We were catching up at the business lounge between our connection. Its been a while since we saw each other. Work, wives, home, and kids, had kept both of busy leaving hardly much time for time for usual friend gossip or activities. Catching up with friends is even harder when friends are separated by intercontinental flight. 

While sipping free champagne, thanks to KLM business lounge, we remembered last time we had fun together as friends. That was before either of us had got married. It was, here in Amsterdam, when we took a journey to Eastern Europe. And probably became first Indians to Climb Mt. Sniezka in Poland. Well to be precise between Polish and Czech border. On the way to Sniezka we did lot of other crazy thing in Prague and made some interesting friends. Lets leave that part for another time. Memories of sipping warm potato soup on the Cold mountain and enjoying the frozen lake beneath us was one of the mesmerising moments of the whole trip. We remembered enjoying potato pancakes with cream and yogurt, in a road side bistro, while comparing it with Indian potato tiki en-route the Czech country side. That was quite a trip and we had so much fun from Karlovyvary all the way to Sniezka and back.  Now family life had made often hard to find time for fun. We also remembered our old Roorkee days when time was not a constraint. 

As we were cherishing the past memories Vishal got distracted by a tall beautiful blonde Dutch girls, who has just come and sat on the table opposite to ours. I asked him “ what you ogling at big lion ? “ Vishal replied, “ I am checking her T-Shirt”. “ You really want me to believe that ?” I knew he cannot be serious. Must be some things else,  needless to say, I know him for a long time. Vishal said, “ is that Everest or what”? That did got me curious. You know what I am thinking now. So I turned to check her out. Well first time in years, he was serious, girl was wearing a T-shirt with Everest. There was a beautiful picture of Everest and underneath it said “ I have been here”. I asked him, “ what are you thinking ?” Vishal “ if She could go why can’t we ?” Our plans have been spontaneous many time. Even the trip to Eastern Europe was a spontaneous one. I also echoed his consent. At the same moment KLM announced in its typical rude tone, “ Vishal Singh report to gate no 31 in 5 minutes otherwise we will offload you luggage”. My connection was delayed but apparently Vishal’s was running on time. We parted with this thought in mind. Everest was calling. 

Next few weeks we shared messages over Whatsapp to ensure that seriousness was still there. In the meantime discussion about our plans also were shared with some very closed friends from college. First to join was Kunal, most experienced and adventurous, among us. Kunal left Roorkee straight to US for studies and was on his was to become Americans soon. Saini, most physically active, also joined in. Saini was the youngest among us and I wanted him to join. He and I share a secret and I wanted to know his side of the story. 

Then four of us spent next few weeks trying to convince Chaudhary to join in. Few years back Chaudhary, Saini and Vishal had taken a trekking trip to the lake of death in the Indian side of Himalayas reaching an altitude of 20,000 ft. The trip was excellent fun with great stories we heard of Chaudhary’s chased by wild dogs on the way to the lake. It was important that Chaudhary joins us. He has been an important part of our group during the college days. I even tried to convince him meeting him on my return trip to Delhi from Doha. All our efforts were in vain. Chaudhary managed to Injure him self few weeks before the trip and any hope to take him with us were out. Our plan did suffer from him not joining as we had shortened it to accommodate his schedule. We didn’t thought much about it it then but it was going to haunt us later. 

Training 

Once the pack was decided, it was time to start training to see if we had, in us, what it takes to be on Everest. Next few weeks were spent to train a bit and exchange each others training schedule and tips. We had decided that once we all start to stick to a training schedule then only we would finalise our plans. We all read about training for Everest trek and watched YouTube videos to familiarise ourselves with the terrain and the beast it self. Soon into our training rhythm we all started to realise that it is going to be a challenge. We were all finding it hard to stick to the training schedule and effects of our ageing bodies on our training were starting to show left right and centre. Only, Saini, was really holding it well. He was helped by his beautiful Americans women co-worker, who were almost working like sexy cheerleaders for him. He posted several pictures of training with young ladies, with fantastic bodies, on the Whatsapp group we had created to keep each other up to date. In contrast to his training mine was like walking in the Park. I was living in Doha and in the summer heat of Doha it was hard to do reasonably good hikes. So I sticked to treadmill and stair stepper. Occasionally I tried to take stairs to my office, which was on the 15th floor. Vishal started his training by trying to have long fast walks around the beautiful garden and suburbs of London. Some days passing Thames on side and Big Bang on other one day. Other days he walked through the green park gardens around Buckingham palace. He tried to minimise his time. In between, over weekend, he tried few small hikes in the country side. Kunal tried his best to get out of LA for his training and often over the weekend did few hikes with another friend, Virdi, who was also getting a bit inclined to join us. 

It took us all about two months to finally find a training routine and a rhythm. We could start to feel our rusted bodies responding to the training. Our stamina was slowly but steadily improved. We followed up our training with routine video conference calls, thanks to the techie Kunal, and shared our experiences to help each other. We also discussed different equipment and pieces of clothing we would need on the trip and divided who will be getting what. Kunal was made in-charge of buying sleeping bags and camping gear. Saini was to bring nutrition bars and minerals. Vishal was going to bring filming equipments and some additional camping gear. I was to bring rechargeable battery packs and some additional compact food for carry on. Our training continued and discussion started to focus more on selection of trekking and traveling days and booking our travel. Lots of back and forth arithmetic calculations were done, well finally we were putting our college degrees and excel skills to use, in figuring out when we should start our travel and how much time we would need based on our trainings and body conditions. Sani maintained the spreadsheet and shared if with us on occasion. He was going to keep track of all the expenses, which were to be shared at the end. It also helped us figure out, why US tax department is employing him. We all agreed it must be his excel skills. 

The Guide

As we felt more comfortable, that we could possibly pull it off, we also started discuss the planning and choosing a suitable tour operator and a guide who would eventually take us up to the Everest base camp. Without proper guides, who could sense the weather and knows local language, and sherpas to carry your luggage and equipments up the mountain it impossible to make the trek to the base camp. We spent some time finding right guide with a reasonable priced tour operator. Kunal and Saini found one over the Internet based in US. We had few phone calls with him and soon we all paid a deposit and booked our tour guide with a US based Nepalese tour operator. 

We had few calls with our guide, Shyam, over Skype. Shyam was a good salesman, he sold us an amazing Everest base camp trek over Skype. He appeared to know what he was talking. He spoke in fluent americanised English, which made us trust him even more. It amazing how someone’s communication skills mislead you.

Whether the trek is going to be successful or not depends a lot on the guide and tour operator. Did we knew it before hand ? Off-course not as we were going to learn it hard way in coming months. Our guide was anything but for sure not a guide. We were going to discover it too. 

The Flight

Arrival dates were decided in next few calls. We all agreed to aim for a quite period and stable weather. After looking a numerous possibilities it was agreed to have our trek during winter months of Nov 2018. It will be cold but weather will be stable and we will find the trail relatively empty. We all would get a chance to enjoy and we hoped to have all the mountain for ourselves. Tickets were booked, food, medicine, equipment finalised, and finally bags were packed. We said good bye to our wives and kids. And just before we were about to leave from our respective places to meet in Delhi we had a surprise addition of one more college friend Virdi. He was filling up for Chaudhary, who was not injured and resting at home. We all arrived at Delhi international airport. It was our starting point for the trek. Vishal arrived from London, I took my flight from Doha, Kunal from LA, Saini flew a week before and was in Delhi and so was Virdi. We all met at Delhi international airport. It was a great joyful moment. We were all together finally after months of hard work, planning and training.  We all looked fit and took a group picture, thanks to a beautiful girl, at the statue of Natraj in the centre of Arrival hall at the Delhi international airport. Excitement was in air we were all waiting for the moment we will be in Kathmandu. Soon our flight boarding gates were announced and we all headed to board the royal Nepalese airline. 

Flight was about 2 hours long. It gave us plenty of time to talk and share our training experience. We laughed at funny things we been doing in past few months to get in shape for the trek. We all were very happy. When we were up in the air, pilot announced that we could see Mt. Everest to our left. We all rushed to the window seat, where Vishal was seated and took some selfies with Mt. Everest shining out from the aeroplane window. Kunal took his go pro and started filming. It was fantastic moment, which got captured on the film. In the meantime beautiful Nepalese air hostesses brought some snacks for us to enjoy with our view. While we all tried to enjoy the view with our snacks, Vishal was trying to enjoy the air hostesses instead, that is typical of him. Beautiful woman and Vishal are always attracted to each other. 

The Arrival 

As the wheels of the plane touched tarmac vaporising fragments of water on it we all rejoiced and cheered for finally landing in Kathmandu after months of wait. The Kathmandu Airport is set in a very scenic environment surrounded with mountains all around. We took few groups pictures as soon as we disembarked the aircraft. Kunal was filming with his go pro camera, when one of the security staff politely asked us to move away from the aircraft and proceed to the arrival hall. We walked passed narrow corridors of the arrival hall made in red brick building. As soon as we reached closer to the immigration counter we hit a huge wall of tourist from all over the world waiting for payments of their visas. The scene at the immigration was rather chaotic it too, us a while to figure out that a separate immigration counter existed for travellers from India. Thank Goodness for that it was nice to escape the long immigration queue. After passing through immigration we made our way to the arrival hall to collect our checked-in bags. The arrival hall was more chaotic than the immigration counter and smell of human urine was all over the place. Our first impression had turned from scenic beauty of mountains seen from the sky to the chaotic reality on the grounds. “Welcome to Kathmandu signs” was written on the exit gate as we left the airport to find out Guide. That’s when we met Vishnu - our real guide. It important to dedicate a paragraph on Vishnu. He was going to play an important role later on. 

Vishnu The Real Guide

It has turned out that Shyam has duped us. He was not present at the arrival gate but we were greeted by his cousin Vishnu - well a distant cousin. It also became clear to us that Shyam our guide or what we thought was our guide was just a middleman based in US, who has never been to Everest himself. He was a smooth talker who get the client and hands them over to his extended family in Nepal at the arrival hall. So hence we have our real guide Vishnu. Now Vishnu is tall as per Nepalis standard, dark in complexion had deep settled eyes and triangular face.  He wore North face jacket and lowered and had a sherpa hat over his head. Vishnu greeted us politely and soon it became clear to us that his English was limited and he didn’t spoke a word of Hindi. Kunal tried to make some desperate calls to Shyam on the number he had but it went un answered. Shyam’s job was done we were passed on to new guide. 

American Dream

I was multi-tasking, jumping on the sofa and watching tv at the same time. Before I could realize I was in a free fall and landed on the table with my cheek to the corner of the table. Immediately I started crying and my mom and dad came rushing from the kitchen, they were angry at me for not taking care while playing and worried if I injures myself badly. 

Luckily I only had a bruise on my face and nothing much. Next day innocently my mother sent me to the school. She didnt know much at that time that things will take an ugly turn. 

Two years back my parents brought me america chasing their american dream. My dad was working for a big software company doing long hours, while my mom was struggling between dropping me to school and getting herself a degree in libraryian course at thr central library in Orange county. 

Past two years have been an emotional roller coaster for me. Leaving my friends and grandparents in India and heading to a far away land where in schools I was fed patsa and pizza instead of traditonal dal roti subhi I had grown up with. Making friends was not easy either my enghlish had a funny accent, as I was told, pupil of my class had difficulty understanding me. I liked he time as at home I had more freedom, given my parents busy schedule, I enjoyed watching Indian movies and cartoon without any fear of being made fun of. 

I am not sure how much my parents were enjoying their american dream. They had almost no time for each other. My father even working on weekends to prove himself to his american counter parts and my mother struggling between home, school and university lectures. 

Well they were so busy to have given a second thought about my bruised cheek and that it could cause a terrible mess in our house and will turn everything upside down for us. 

I reached school and when I was into my second lecture, head miss Fluffy Daiels came to me and asked what happened to my face. I told her I fell down. Then she asked me if my parents were angry, I said yes they were angry and worried. She didnt catch the worried part thanks to my so called funny accent. She then left and I continued with my lecture. 

During recess I was asked to come to the head miss office and as I entered I was surrounded by some men and women in blue uniforms. They wanted to ask me about the incident again. I told them what happened. Then they asked me if my parents fight. I innocently told them sometimes they do. I was too small to grasp the consequences of my answers. At the end of one hours of question I was told that I will not go home today but to a different place, which will be better than home and lots of toys. I asked what about my parents. I was told not to worry they will come to the same place. I got excited to go this new place. I was thinking of playing and toys. Upto this point I was not at all aware of what was going to happen to me. I was taken to place of which I have faint memories. It was a big house in the middle of no where. There were few other younger kids and there were two adults, whom we could only call Sir and Madam. 

This house was counter opposite of my house. Although there were many toys, everytging else was neat and tidy. Anything I took, I was told, I had to keep exactly at the same place. Timing when food was served was very strict and I only had one hr. for each meal. I was given a room with another younger boy who cried all night to see his mom. I was told my parents will come to see me tomorrow. I was waiting to see them let them know that I will not behave badly again so that I don’t have to be punished like this and I really wanted to go home with them. 

I waited all day and finally around 7 o clock in evening my mother showed up with some friend of hers. She looked completely awful her hairs were everywhere it appeared she had been crying all night and day. When she saw me she could not hold herself and gave me a tight hug and started crying again. I asked her again where is dady. She told me he was too busy at work and will come another day. Reality though was very different the night before my father was arrested on suspicion of beating me and he was in prison waiting for his court hearing to be released on a bail bond. I was told about it later. 

My mother was allowed to stay with me for two hours and when she was leaving I told her that I will be a good boy please don’t leave me here. She could not control herself and started crying again. Her friend consoled me and told that soon they will take me home.